When OSes Play Nice Together

One of the side stories to the upcoming, full-blown launch of Intel's virtualization technology is this: Enterprising solution providers and OEMs can more easily partition systems to run two different operating systems at the same time.

So if a corporate network is still standardized on Windows 98 because they can't afford to upgrade their homegrown applications to Windows XP, here's the solution: Run both! The virtualization technology will also allow a server to run both a Microsoft operating system and Linux.

Some folks aren't waiting for the full-blown virtualization rollout from Intel, though. HP's Rich Marcello points to HP reseller Repton, based in the U.K., which has developed a unique HP Integrity Superdome system. According to the site How Good Is It:

Based around Intel's third-generation, 64-bit technology, this system has been rewriting world benchmark performance records across the complete spectrum.

What really makes this system different, though, is its ability to run four operating systems concurrently: Windows, Linux, OpenVMS and HP-UX. Offering unrivaled flexibility and making these systems a natural choice for consolidation now and scaling with a business in the future.

Windows and other operating systems playing nice on the same server? That would have been tough to imagine just a few years ago.

What's not tough to imagine is that HP's Marcello, on his blog, offers a warm "thank you" to Repton.